Exercise can improve a person's motor skills, fitness, muscle and bone strength, and joint function. Exercise has several effects upon muscles, connective tissue, bone, and the nerves that stimulate the muscles. One of the effects is muscle hypertrophy, which is used in bodybuilding. Many forms of exercise equipment have been designed for this purpose. For example, known exercise apparatuses employ weights to be lifted through a range of motion for exercising specific muscles of the body. Other known apparatuses utilize friction mechanisms to generate a resistance proportion to relative movement of certain components of the exercising device.
Resistive elastic members have gained increased popularity due to their ability to provide substantially consistent tension throughout the desired range of motion and generate an increased use of stabilizer muscles to oppose the substantially consistent tension. Therefore, many exercise apparatuses use springs, rubber bands, plates, and surgical tubing or bungee cables to produce elastic resistance to movement in a particular direction. On the other hand, portable exercise devices have been a popular alternative to health club memberships for many fitness-minded people. The convenience of having an exercise machine at home allows people to fit exercise into their schedules easily because they are not limited by health club schedules or inclement weather conditions.
However, known portable exercise apparatus provides only compression or extension force. For example, an elastic band on exercise apparatus normally provides only pulling or extension force to strengthen extensor group of muscles, such as deltoid muscle, triceps and subscapular muscle. Therefore, there exists a need to design a portable exercise apparatuses that produces elastic resistance to movements in more than one particular direction.
Advantageously, the present invention provides an exercise apparatus that uses a single elastic member to generate resistance force against both the compression and the extension/expansion of the exercise apparatus. In a preferred embodiment, the present designed exercise apparatus can provide the compression and extension force by the same elastic band.